CORE 1 BIOSPECIMEN AND PATHOLOGY: Summary/Abstract The Biospecimen and Pathology Core will coordinate efforts related to collection, processing, storage and distribution of annotated human and murine biospecimens for all of the SPORE projects, including the Career Enhancement Program (CEP) and Developmental Research Program (DRP). The Core will be co-led by two nationally reputed gastrointestinal/pancreatic pathologists, Drs. Dipen Maru and Huamin Wang. For human biospecimens, the core will interface with the MDACC Institutional Tissue Bank (ITB). Biospecimen resources from the lower gastrointestinal tissue bank include freshly collected/snap frozen and formalin fixed paraffin embedded tumor and normal specimens from more than 2500 resected hepatic colorectal metastases (including TMAs), freshly collected and snap frozen adenoma from 334 patients and formalin fixed paraffin embedded specimens from 870 or more patients with sporadic adenoma or familial adenomatous polyposis. Existing biospecimen resources available in the pancreatic bank and related IRB approved protocols include freshly collected/snap frozen tumor and normal tissue sample from Whipple resection for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma from 232 patients, with formalin fixed paraffin embedded specimens and additional 672 patients, including tissue microarrays from pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and intraductal pancreatic mucinous neoplasms. The Core will support Project 1 by coordinating prospective blood collection, cryopreservation and transport with the ITB. Specifically, Core faculty will prospectively collect, process and distribute fresh tumor and normal samples from hepatic colorectal metastases after obtaining mirror image section for histology quality control. The Core will provide formalin fixed paraffin embedded samples of normal, adenoma and carcinoma to Project 2. In addition the Core will provide biospecimen qualification services, including but not limited to, histopathologic characterization of human and murine tissues treated with STAT3 inhibitor, and immunohistochemistry staining and interpretation, including validation of p-STAT3 staining by automated image analysis in a CLIA-certified facility. The Core will provide freshly resected PDAC samples for patient derived xenografts and ex vivo live tissue sensitivity assay (LTSA) for Project 3. In addition, the Core will provide histopathology characterization, immunohistochemistry services and interpretation guidelines for both preclinical samples from the ongoing co-clinical trials, as well as serial tissue biopsies obtained from the two clinical trials being conducted Project 3. The Core will also coordinate distribution of appropriate samples to investigators funded through the SPORE CEP and DRP grants. The Core personnel, along with the ITB, will enter detailed information related to all processes of biospecimen collection, processing, qualification, distribution and analytes extraction into the Institutional Biospecimen Informatics platform known as ?Tissue Station?. The Core activities will lead to enhancement of these functionalities of Tissue Station and design a new interface specific for GI SPORE in the Tissue Station.